Training New Hires 25

[HSThompson]

OK, This isn't a technical question but one that I am sure that we are struggling with. We, like everyone, are hiring new stressers everyday. I've been a stress engineer since '91. I was trained in the old Boeing way, find the grizzliest old stress guy you could, then shut-up and listen. In addition, at Boeing we had the Tech Excellence classes.

My problem is this, the OEM I’m at now does not have very good training courses, and there aren’t enough grizzlies to go around. We’re getting worn out explaining the same things over and over to a different person; i.e. IDT, Mc/I, Cripple, Buckle, Repairs, DADT, FEM, Load Paths, FAR’s, what references to buy etc. etc., etc.

My question is this, for all you old timers and newbies out there, what are some training methods you have used or seen that can get them up to speed and quickly? I can think of a few but a fresh perspective would be nice.

 

[Sparweb]

Greg Locock: The ideal racing car should fall apart as it crosses the finishing line.

I thought that was GM: The ideal production vehicle should fall apart the day after its warranty expires...

(Sorry, I'm too cynical, and they're too easy to kick when they're down.)

Steven Fahey, CET

 

[GregLocock]

That's the logical outcome of the short term view in modern business. What would happen then is that the resale value would drop, so the car would be more expensive to lease from new. To pick a bad example Hyundais have created a new market, you buy one and run it into the ground over six years. It's a bad example because Hyundai in practice have improved their reliability more than anyone else, in the past few years, because with mass production improving quality is cheap and effective.

In practice, of course, a car that has finished its warranty will typically be MORE reliable than it was during the warranty period. Cars are massively overdesigned in my opinion.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[crackman]

Just a quick word or two regarding refined designs specifically regarding aircraft. What everyone seems to forget is that you would only ever design something to "wear out" (as we do not design things to fail) at a specific time IF you never wanted to extend the design in the future. Once you tailor a design so specifically it is almost impossible to extend the design without major redesign ($$$M) costs. Also, another little thing to remember is that there are ALWAYS discrepancies which need to be addressed during manufacturing, ie MRB type repairs. If the design is too refined, you will be scrapping rather than repairing every part which has a ding, dent, scratch, short ED,etc (by the way this gets past on to customers by increases in production costs). The reasons for having "pad" on your design is to enable it to weather thru normal repairs and desirable design changes. Is anyone aware of a popular aircraft that has never had a design weight increase? Also, a bit tough to pull over to the side of the road when a part fails on an aircraft.
Anyways, just my own opinions.

James

 

[GregLocock]

"a bit tough to pull over to the side of the road when a part fails on an aircraft."

Agreed, that's why the factor of safety on a skyscraper should be higher than that of a gatepost.

However, isn't the dirty little secret that we pile safety factor on safety factor, generally? All with good reason, of course. That is what you exploit as the life of the product is extended.




Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[StressTheGame]

Going back to the original question, I would recommend Practical Stress Analysis (PSA) by Jean-Claude Flabel as the best single source for what I refer to as "wisdom of the ages" assumptions or simplifications. I was lucky to attend the course Flabel gave at Boeing in 1989 and everyone considered it extremely valuable. Even if you cannot attend the course, his writing style is down to earth and allows you to see into his rationale. I have mostly worked as a Stress Analyst and had the priviledge of working with some very talented old-timers in the 747 Post-Production Group and Boeing's Airplane on the Ground crew. I have worked at Boeing Everett (12 yrs), Hawker de Havilland Australia, Hawker Pacific Australia, Civil Aviation Safety Authority, and Royal Australian Air Force. Jean-Claude's book is the prime reference source I recommend to engineers wishing to gain practical knowledge - even more than what most "practical" training courses can provide.

 

[AminG]

Second the motion: The book by Jean-Claude Flabel, "Practical Stress Analysis for Design Engineers" is superb. His website is

http://www.psa1.com.

I recently ordered the book and I would highly recommend it along side of Bruhn.

 

[jzbick]

Good comments!! Felt I should chime in - especially with James comment "I have personally witnessed many good new engineers trown to the wolves without any training to end up quitting their jobs out of frustration and switching industries."

James - I'm probably one of the ones you're talking about. I came fresh out of college into the referenced company, and immediately placed in the FEA group. After switching to the stress/FDT group, it took me a long time to learn (unlearn) that detailed FEA is NOT the way to do stress analysis, it's only a tool. After much frustration of seeing what goes on in this industry (at least in one major company), it was frustrating and downright scary. Part of the reason I did indeed leave the aerospace industry.

The other issue with regards to training shocked me. There was NO formal training or mentoring program set up for new hires. At least in my case, it seemed the general attitude was throw someone into a job to fill the position, without regards to their career or the quality of the aircraft produced.

I sat next to incredibly talented engineers, and learned the most by listening, and asking queestions. But when I saw vice-presidents walking up to talented stress engineers and forcing them to sign-off a bad design ("make that negative margin positive - we gotta get the plane out the door"), it really made me wonder if its worth it to continue in the engineering field.

I now work more in the Mechanical/IT field supporting engineers designing copiers/office equipment, and I have seen more free-body diagrams, structure/mechanics courses internally for any employee, training & mentoring than I did in aerospace.

 

[crackman]

Jason

That must be you. Good to hear from you and congrats. You are right on about the difference in attitude towards training in the aero industry versus other industries and its only getting worse day by day.

All

I appreciate everyone's interest in the liasion training course but after emailing out about 50 copies I really cannot keep up with the requests anymore. Could some of you other folks whom I sent copies to disseminate to new requests? Thanks, I have just gotten way too busy at work to keep up with all the email requests.

James

 

[prost]

crackman:
How about I post it on my ftp site, anybody can download it? Did you ever find the answer key?

You can download the stress course at
ftp://ftp.apesolutions.com/pub/Stress_Course_for_Liasion_Engineers.pdf

 

[liaisoneng]

As a former Liaison Engineer, now a Stress Analyst (for the past two years), I am surprised no one mentioned the Boeing Structural Repair course for Engineers. I took it later in my career, after I'd learned most of the precepts through the school of hard knocks, but I believe it would be very valuable to new graduates. It covers load path, repair sizing, fasteners, etc at a fairly high level with good example problems. While Ma Boeing charges for it, all of our new hires who had the opportunity to take it, speak very highly of it. It is relatively elementary for Liaison problems, but the advanced courses deal with compression instability (buckling and crippling), as well as durability and damage tolerance.

Russ

 

[rb1957]

after many years i've come to the conclusion that courses are best left to horses. the most i've ever gotten was a few ideas about things, which i then followed up on my own.

one company i worked with started a training internship for new grads, trying to fill the gapping void between school (today) and the practical needs of the work place, where they went through several departments (hopefully figuring out how the plane was put together, at least finding people in these various departments to go to later) and they also went through the rivet school, learning how to buck rivets. i always thought that was a valuable lesson.

as for interview testing, what people here are starting calling "the inquisition", its depressing how few grads can solve a simply supported beam, let alone stress a bracket.

TTFN

 

[crackman]

Thanks prost for posting the liasion course notes, greatly appreciated.

In addition to the structural repair course, Boeing has some great training books which they use in their stress, fatigue and DTA courses. They give a very good review of structural analysis for all components of the airplane and then get into specific details of analysis. I believe it used to be contained in two notebook binders if I remember correctly.

I do agree as well that training must be both in the classroom and hands on to get the most out of it. Much of this relies on your boss and his willingness to expose you to the various aspects of being a stress engineer.

It is unfortunate that most new grads have very little to no experience with real world problems. Heck, most dont even know what Mil-hndbk-5 is. In my own opinion, this has alot to do with the fact that professors today have little to zero experience in industry. In the old days, most professors came from industry and valued exposing their students to real world problems and not just ivory tower projects to get them funding for the next several years. I have approached universities in the past to have them do structural testing for me only to be turned away because they were not considered cutting edge.

James

 

[Sparweb]

This thread has become much more meaningful for me. I am 6 weeks into supervising a summer student. I've discovered some surprising attitudes that somehow get picked up from university M.E. classes, that I'll pass on, if it's helpful:
Airplanes must be made of carbon fibre,
Airplanes must be designed with highly detailed 3-d models,
What's with all these dusty old books?

We've overcome some of these things by working on the basics - how to draw good drawings, what materials to choose, looking through fastener catalogues. While re-stocking some shelves in the shop, he had a 4130 tube in his hand and asked "this is steel?" Yes... "But it's so light!" Of course... "How can steel be so light?" A lesson was learned.

University courses really don't give students much contact with materials, so a teacher telling them that graphite is the most structurally efficient material leads them down a rather costly path. Students then get themselves into design competitions, and lord help them, these 20 year-olds are sawing and grinding CFRP projects with no masks on!

The foregoing discussion prepared me a little for the task, so thanks to all. When it's time, I'll bring out the course notes (thanks again Crackman).

Steven Fahey, CET

 

[compositestress]

This is not a complaint !!!!

You can download the stress course at
ftp://ftp.apesolutions.com/pub/Stress_Course_for_Liasion_Engineers.pdf

Does anyone have lesson 14 and 15. The pdf above stops at page 14-2.

Many thanks

 

[prost]

compositestress:
durn, I didn't even notice that. I was going through the PDF, didn't get to the end yet. The PDF unfortunately is how I received it.

 

[prost]

compositestress:
The PDF I put on my ftp site had pages in wrong order; looks to me as if they are all there, just mixed up.

 

[crackman]

All

Just a note to say that I am not ignoring peoples request for the liasion course notes but hoping rather that people will see the links that prost and compositestress kindly provided for copies of the notes.

Sorry but I really just dont have the time to email everyone back.

Also, this is to prost or compositestress, I do have the answer key. When I get a chance to scan it in, I can email it to either or both of you so you can post it. But, you should probably make people send you a copy of their work first so they can demonstrate they actually worked the problems, ha ha. Would be interesting to see the grade distribution. Anyways, will post when they are available.

James

 

[compositestress]

Crackman

Did you get a chance to scan the answer key?
Also, what is MAC 339?

CS

 

[fbdandloadpath]

CS,

MAC 339 is McDonnell Aircraft Company Report 339 - a strength (stress/structures) manual from the days in St. Louis before Boeing or even Douglas. It came from back when they called themselves Mac-Air.

FBDANDLOADPATH

 

[plasgears]

At GE engines we had a staff of Phd engineers who published monographs that helped the newbie learn fundamentals about various structures like flanges, mounts, frames and other space structures, vibrations of stators and blades, etc.

One helpful publication was a compilation of historical lessons learned. It helped one get over the stupid and inexperienced phase.

I remember the evolution of nozzle actuator mounts. It went from the 'suitcase handle' thru the 'shearplate and floating pin' to the current thrust tube and ring arrangement. (We killed more German pilots in the F104 program than during some major air battles over Europe. The exhaust nozzles kept separating from the engine.)